Bio/Pictures

Karri August Maclean Oksanen Was born in Windsor Ontario Jan 14, 1990

He moved with his family to Orillia Ontario that year and then to Anaheim Hills CA in 1992. After 4 yrs in SoCal, The family moved back to Guelph where he started playing baseball and hockey and almost immediately he excelled in both sports to the Triple AAA travel level and played both sports in high school as well. He was on the OFSSA Champion JF Ross Royals 2005 hockey team and on the OFSSAA Finalist JFRoss Royals baseball team as well. He was a hs all star in both sports and team mvp in baseball every year.

Karri was fully bilingual having completed full french immersion schooling and all the way through he volunteered at St Josephs Hospital in Guelph. He was a volunteer time keeper at the local Guelph rinks and was always giving his time to fellow players to help them to improve. He went on to play in the PBLO baseball association where he was scouted and signed to a full ride scholarship at Lon Morris College , a Division 1 JUCO school in East Texas. His freshman year he started in center field , hit .405 and made the All-Conference Team in the toughest conference in the USA. He also participated in SIFE a school club concentrating on enterpreneurship and his school won their western usa conference for their presentation at the conference.

Karri earned an Associate Degree in International Business and was recruited by UNC, UNLV, UL, etc, all good division 1 schools. That summer he fell off a seadoo and broke ribs and tore his labrum on his throwing hand. He rehabbed, missed fall ball and had a decent Junior year batting .300. The offers dried up and he then took the partial scholarship at a D2 school, Arkansas Tech University entering in his sophmore year Studying Marketing and Management. His Sophmore year saw another big injury, torn patella tendon which finished his MLB dreams as his major tool was his speed and he had lost a 1/2 a step with the injury.

He decided to be a student coach in his senior year and did an excellent job. His coach, Dave Dawson, is having the team wear a patch in his honour this year as well as leaving his locker space vacant with his jersey hanging in it. Quite an honour. His teammate told me a Karri Hour story about karri at the funeral. He said that the coach had Karri cutting the grass, zip stripping the tie wraps to the mesh, pushing 300lb roto-tiller over the grass in 110 degree heat and he never complained. He showed up early, stayed late, and constantly provided the chatter and the upbeat optimism to the entire team in his student coaching roll.

Upon his return to Guelph this spring, he was asked to play in the Intercounty League but he said no as he had six more courses to take to graduate. He did two online from May to July and was enrolled to take the four more online starting Aug 20th and he would have graduated in December.

He left a legacy of love, helping friendship and caring to every and all who he would meet.